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Monday, 17 March 2014

Country Comes to Town

My 'country bumpkin' credentials are a bit suspect as I spend the wetter 4 months of the year in town. If our architect had been open to my suggestions of a damp course, cavity walls and a ceiling lower than 6 meters, I could have been writing this from the village but the price of heating an un-insulatable barn of a living room makes moving out in the winter more cost effective. Despite all this (and being born almost in Birmingham) I am a country girl at heart. When I first arrived here, Bodrum was a village surrounded by smaller villages and hamlets, now Bodrum is heading for city status and all the coastal villages are towns. The village way of life is still going strong, but is only found inland, away from the hotels and holiday villages and so is a mystery to the majority of Bodrum visitors. Bodrum Kent Konseyi leader Hamdi Topçuoğlu wants to rectify this and last Saturday organised a "Village Fayre" in the centre of Bodrum inviting 19 local villages and one from Datça to showcase their wares. My neighbour Raşit was there with his baskets and wooden spoons and a basket of morel mushrooms picked from the forest behind our house. The 20 villages produced varied displays of carpets, kilims, crochet lace, soap, pasta, scarves, knitted bouquets of roses, bottles of olives and pickled vegetables, honey, sweets, olive oil, goat's cheese, herbal teas, carob pods, pottery, bunches of lavender and wild asparagus and a camel. I wanted to stay for the folk dancing but Jake had a problem with the camel. He's usually a well behaved dog and we can take him nearly everywhere with us but he has taken a dislike to camels. He started barking which drew all the stray dogs to our side to join in so I thought it better, having taken a few photos, to beat a retreat. After all, I'm lucky to be in a position to enjoy all these village activities in situ, I hope others were encouraged to go out and see what life, non-dependent on the tourist, is like.

25 comments:

I feel quite envious, B2B - what a fantastic show of village life...which one does the camel live in? He (or she) is gorgeous, though I can understand why Jake might have been wary. Great post and photos. Axxx

Oo-oooh, so sorry I missed that. I'm sure I wouldn't have gotten away with a single kuruş left to my name! I have been seriously coveting one (or more) of Raşit's baskets since you introduced him to us in your blog. Everything looks great, even the beautifully bedecked camel. (Sorry, Jake. But there are worse things than camel phobia.)

. . it looks like a splendid event and great fun. Dalyan's two attempts to introduce the idea of Area councils have been scuppered by consecutive mayors who can't stand having any good ideas apart from their own narrow, blinkered ones.

Dear Annie, that camel is certainly a study in sartorial splendor. Perhaps Jake was wishing that he, too, could walk around with a "zoot" suit on! I so love fairs. Thanks for sharing this one with us. Peace.

Hi Annie. You must have been there earlier than me because I bought one of Rasit's baskets shown in your photo - bit pricey I have to say - and I am a seasoned basket buyer. Never mind it was lovely to see a market back in the harbour and I feel at least once a month would be good and not just a one off.

What a lovely looking day for a Village Fair... kind of reminds me our our village fete in the wilds of Norfolk... country bumpkins and jars of jam everywhere... Do you mind if i feature a couple of photo's on my Bodrum site with a link back to your article? thx, Jay

Gosh, that camel is splendid! I do hope some of the traditional village life manages to survive. Our bit of France is deeply rural, but even so the markets are slowly dying, thanks to the ubiquitous supermarket.

About Me

In early 1982 I boarded a Turkish Kibris flight to Izmir - my destination was a 29 foot sloop in Bodrum's new marina. At 22, my belongings fitted into a worse for wear sailing holdall. In 2012 I made a similar journey from Heathrow to Bodrum. Thirty years have passed and Bodrum has changed. There are plenty of very good blogs detailing the ex-pat journey through modern Turkey. The aim of this one is to catch sight of past Turkey through my experience of re-settling in modern Bodrum.